David Brooks: Our Elites Still Don’t Get It

Maximizing the freedom of choice has eroded the West's covenantal foundations, leaving liberalism without any foundation

Proverbs 29: 18 states “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint,but blessed is he who keeps the law.”

David Brooks presents quite an extraordinary essay here, noting that “At our foundation, we were a society with strong covenantal attachments — to family, community, creed and faith. Then on top of them we built democracy and capitalism that celebrated liberty and individual rights.

The deep covenantal institutions gave people the capacity to use their freedom well. The liberal institutions gave them that freedom.”

But the liberalism of the past 50 years has cast off all restraint, whether it has casting off economically, sexually, or (as he neglects to mention) via technology.